Download logoG5 Sahel heads of state at a Summit on Friday in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, gave strong support to Desert to Power, an Africa Development Bank (https://www.AfDB.org/) -led initiative. The summit, "Harnessing solar energy for the socio-economic development of the G5 Sahel countries" came on the heels of a high-level technical meeting at […]

The African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org), rated Aaa/AAA/AAA (Moody’s/S&P/Fitch, all stable), has launched and priced a US$ 2 billion 3-year Global Benchmark bond due 16 September 2022, its first US$ benchmark of the year. Launched on September 11, the bond issue is the Bank’s second Global Benchmark of 2019, following a EUR 1 billion 10-year priced in […]

Innovative thinking about Africa’s conventional employment issues is what marks the African Development Bank’s (www.AfDB.org) new policy research document “Creating Decent Jobs: Strategies, Policies, and Instruments,” participants heard at the report launch, held 12 September 2019. The report elicited strong presentations and a lively debate during the event […]

Every summer the West African nation of Niger endures torrential rains which can destroy hundreds of households and trigger cholera outbreaks, often leading to major human and material losses across the country. This year, in fact, more than 200,000 people are at risk of being displaced during the rainy season due to overflowing rivers and landslides. Close […]

Download logoThe U.S. Embassy strongly condemns the violence perpetrated against humanitarian aid workers in Gambella on September 5, 2019, which resulted in the deaths of two staff members of Action Against Hunger, a non-governmental organization. The loss of these Ethiopian aid workers saddens us deeply, and we offer our sincerest condolences to their fam […]

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) supported 31 Tunisian students and university graduates with concrete opportunities to build up their skills and increase their chances of finding an adequate job, or to create their own opportunities through a 20-month project linking Belgium and Tunisia. Launched in March 2018 and running through October 2 […]

The Kingdom of Morocco has been officially chosen as the host of the 24th Session of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), to be held in 2021. At the conclusion of the 23rd General Assembly in St Petersburg, Member States of the United Nations specialized agency for tourism, were asked to choose between Morocco, Kenya and the Philippines. All three Member […]

With Mozambique devastated by drought, flooding and Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in the past several months, humanitarian partners yesterday (12/09) launched the revised Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) requesting over USD 397 million to support affected populations. The HRP – which comes six months after Cyclone Idai made landfall and was shortly followed by C […]

The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) today announced a grant to West Africa LNG Group Guinea SA (WA-LNG) for a feasibility study to assess the economic, financial and technical viability of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal and distribution network near the Port of Kamsar in the Boké region of Guinea. The study will be conducted by Pl […]

Download logoThe World Health Organization (WHO) congratulates the Government of Kenya for launching the world’s first malaria vaccine today in Homa Bay County, western Kenya. The malaria vaccine pilot programme is now fully underway in Africa, as Kenya joins Ghana and Malawi to introduce the landmark vaccine as a tool against a disease that continues to aff […]

In the latest display of deepening cracks in the West's formerly unified economic campaign against Russia, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters Monday that "the time is right" for reconciliation in EU-Moscow relations.

A leaked government report predicting shortages of food, fuel and medication doesn't just affect residents. Combined with days-long queues to get in and out of the UK, it could be 'catastrophic' for travelers

The president of the French Football Federation (FFF) has said he is "totally against" the interruption of football matches as a result of homophobic chants and banners, despite rules introduced by the FFF this season instructing referees to do exactly that.

The major networks were once the centerpiece of the fall in terms of pop culture. Now, they're just one more group crying for attention, in a fourth-quarter that will see an onslaught of streaming and cable fare and the launch of studio-backed streaming service Disney+ as well as Apple TV+.

Ken Burns, the renowned documentarian known for bringing American history to vivid life, debuts his latest effort on Sunday, "Country Music." The ambitious yet intimate eight-part PBS series chronicles one of the country's indigenous and most beloved musical genres.

CBS All Access has shed some light on the role of The Dark Man, confirming to CNN on Friday that "Big Little Lies" alum Alexander Skarsgard will play the villainous Randall Flagg in its limited series adaptation of Stephen King's "The Stand."

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has asked the courts to impose mandatory death sentences for people convicted of murder following a series of kidnapping and killings, including one in which his nephew died.

A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Friday demanded internal emails, detailed financial information and other company records from top executives of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc, Apple Inc, and Alphabet Inc's Google, widening the antitrust probe of Big Tech.

U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Friday asked a government watchdog to look into the Trump administration's decision to launch an antitrust probe into four automakers cooperating with California on tighter greenhouse gas emissions limits that Trump is trying to eliminate.

A lawyer for former FBI official Andrew McCabe pressed U.S. prosecutors on Friday to drop their politically sensitive case against him, citing reports that suggest they may be having trouble securing criminal charges.

Former Vice President Joe Biden returned to the campaign trail on Friday after a Democratic debate that largely reinforced his front-runner status for the party's presidential nomination, leaving his rivals searching for how to wrest away the top spot.

A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday revived a lawsuit alleging President Donald Trump violated the U.S. Constitution by profiting from foreign and domestic officials who patronized his hotels and restaurants, moving a watchdog group closer to obtaining financial records from his real estate company.

Former White House national security adviser John Bolton, who parted ways this week with President Donald Trump, resumed his old job on Friday as head of two political action committees and announced $50,000 in contributions to Republican candidates.

Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden clashed with progressive challengers Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on healthcare in a debate on Thursday, defending Obamacare and pushing them to be honest about the cost of their plans.

Country Stats

Posts Tagged ‘Turkey’

A baby plays in a tub of water at Za’atari camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan

DUBAI, – Bombs, clashes and airstrikes have killed at least 92,000 in Syria, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. But millions of people – and more still across the region – are at risk due to something much less discussed: sanitation.

Summer heat, shortages of clean water, a crumbling health system, breakdowns in waste management services, and overcrowded conditions in common shelters have led to a rise in potentially life-threatening diseases.

As summer temperatures rise, poor hygiene and sanitation are an increasing concern. The World Health Organizationwrote last month: “outbreaks are inevitable.”

Up to 8,000 Syrians leave every day, often for overcrowded camps in neighbouring countries. The scale of population movement means that the threat is not just confined to Syria. Already, diseases have appeared in Turkey and Jordan that had not been seen for years, if not decades, before the Syrian crisis.

“The international community must now seriously view the ever worsening humanitarian and health situation as a threat to regional security and their own national interests,” public health doctors Adam Coutts and Fouad M. Fouad wrote in The Lancet medical journal on 29 June.

SAADNAYEL, BEKAA VALLEY, – Two years ago, as Syrian refugees began streaming across borders, Lebanese families opened up their homes. Unlike in Jordan, Turkey and Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of refugees are being housed in camps, at the beginning of the influx into Lebanon, the majority of refugees were hosted by families. Some Lebanese households to ok in as many as six refugee families.

But as the conflict next-door has dragged on and the number of refugees in Lebanon has grown, so too has the burden on their Lebanese hosts.Today, most of the 425,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon are renting homes or apartments; with only 6 percent hosted by families, according to a survey by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).IRIN spent a day with some Lebanese hosts, bringing you this portrait of a family trying to balance obligation and sacrifice.
It was a series of twists of fate that brought together two families – one Lebanese, one Syrian – that did not know one another.They met 15 years ago in a shared cab on the way to Syria, where the Lebanese family often shopped for cheaper products. Becoming friends, they met once or twice a year in Syria after that.

When Israel began bombing Lebanon in 2006, as part of a war with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the Lebanese family fled to Syria, where their new acquaintances hosted them for one month.

Six years later, the tables were turned.

On a sunny Thursday morning, Hannan is preparing a simple Lebanese breakfast of bread and vegetables for guests in the small Sunni village of Saadanayel, in Lebanon’s eastern Beka’a Valley.

Houda, 7, Bassima, 14, and their grandparents Sadika and Mohammad are seated on the floor of the living room, preparing to eat.

Hannan has been hosting the family of seven Syrian refugees in her humble two-bedroom house for the last five months. The children’s parents, Fadia and Houssam, have been out since early morning, like every day, searching for jobs in the surrounding cities of the Beka’a Valley. Their third child, 10-year-old Kamal, is out fetching water.

When their neighbourhood near the Syrian capital Damascus was bombed in December 2012, Fadia and Houssam called the only people they knew in Lebanon, and Hannan immediately responded.

“It’s a pity. They had nowhere to go,” she said. “I couldn’t say no. It would have been an offence against God not to help them.”

Hannan’s husband has a second wife, and only sleeps at the house every other day. Their five grown children do not live at home any more. So Hannan gave up her bedroom for the young Syrian couple, and is now sharing the second room with the grandparents and three children.

She spends her morning with the grandparents, interrupting their chit-chat every five minutes to take laundry off the clothesline, prepare coffee, garden, and watch over the refugee children playing in the field next door (They arrived in Lebanon too late in the year to enrol in school).

Everyone helps out with the household tasks, even Sadika, who has arthritis and leg pains. Fadia helps with the cooking and cleaning when she gets home from the job search. But as far as Hannan is concerned, that’s the easy part.

“I am used to cooking a lot of food for my visitors, so I don’t mind cooking for 10 people. It is not the logistical side which is difficult. It is the financial side,” she whispers. “We are struggling to get enough food for everyone.”

The Syrian family has run out of money, so she, her husband and her seven guests live off the little money her husband gets from his pension, from their rented out horse pen, and from the garlic they grow in the backyard, which they trade for other vegetables.

They have cut back on meat almost completely and Hannan and her husband no longer buy new clothes or things for the house.

“I don’t want to tell them that it’s difficult, because I fear God,” Hannan says. “In 2006 when I stayed at their place it was different. I was staying with the grandparents, and it was only for a month.”

Around midday, the visitors begin stopping by. First it is the neighbours; then shisha-smoking friends of Hannan’s son, some of them Lebanese soldiers; then her own friends. They pass the time under the shadows of trees in the garden. The coffee is always flowing. The visits do not stop until late afternoon.

They chat about everything and nothing, and when the discussion turns towards the situation in Syria, Hannan springs out of her seat, and disappears into the house, finding a new task to keep busy. She doesn’t say so, but the discussions appear to make her uncomfortable. At the very least, she’s tired of it. “They spend all day talking about Syria,” she says.

At 2pm, the school bus drops off the neighbours’ children, who join the Syrian children chasing each other around the field. Shortly after their arrival, Fadia returns from hours of job-hunting. She cannot afford to take the bus every day, so sometimes she walks for kilometres.

She checks on her children, then immediately turns to helping Hannan with the daily tasks. She doesn’t get very far before a new visitor arrives.

A local representative from the Sunni political party Future Movement has stopped by. (He sometimes distributes food vouchers to the Syrian refugees, but he does not have any with him this time).

“They’re lucky to have found a host family,” Anouar Choubasse says. “A lot of Syrian refugees have nothing, not even a roof.”

Fadia is a little surprisedby his arrival and keeps her distance. She has tried to keep her family’s presence as discrete as possible – potentially for fear of the growing resentment towards the refugees in Lebanon. She never shares her opinions about politics.

“Saadnayel has always been a [hospitable] community,” says Choubasse. “But now, I can feel the racism growing. A lot of Lebanese people are in a difficult situation and don’t get any help. It’s not as bad [here] as in certain villages, where they imposed curfews on the Syrians. But people are losing patience.”

This Lebanese host family appears to be no exception.

His wife may fear God, but Hannan’s husband Ali does not hesitate to speak openly when he comes home later in the afternoon.

“When I sleep here, I have to sleep on the couch in the living room. I want to sleep in the same bed as my wife again. If the situation lasts for more than two more months, I will set up the family in a tent in the garden. If they will be staying for the long term, I will build a permanent structure for them.”

He pauses to consider.

“Of course we need to help them,” he goes on. “As the Arabic saying goes: ‘If someone is good to you, be twice as good to them’. But we need our intimacy at some point.”

By 4.30pm, the visitors begin trickling out. The Syrian father, Houssam, is still not home. His wife hopes his delay means he has found a job.

While Mohammad, the grandfather, takes a nap in the living room, Fadia and Hannan have lunch together. To accommodate the constant stream of visitors, they have to eat in two shifts. Today, the women eat first. They usually mix with the men, but this change of circumstances makes them laugh. “In the old Damascene tradition, the men ate before the women,” Fadia says. “Now it’s the opposite.”

Whereas both Fadia and Hannan seemed uncomfortable with some of the visitors talking politics, the atmosphere during lunch is much more relaxed.

Houssam eventually returns, still jobless. He is frustrated, but does not show it.

“I have been looking for a job for five months now and haven’t found anything,” he says. “There is too much unemployment in the area and they hire the Lebanese before hiring Syrians… I could take any job, as long as it’s not too physical because I have heart problems,” he adds.

They chit-chat together on the front porch until the sun sets.

At night, they watch a drama series – careful to turn on the TV only after the news is over. Hannan tries to distract them with happier thoughts.

“We don’t want to follow what is happening in Syria,” she explains. “It is too emotional for the Syrian family to talk about it. When you host a Syrian family, you have to be careful and subtle about the topics you talk about. You also have to be really patient.” And apparently, you also have to have a lot of coffee.

Big donors still key – The G7 countries provided 70 percent of total net DAC ODA in 2012, with DAC-EU countries contributing 51 percent. ODA rose in nine countries, with the highest jumps coming from Australia, Austria, Iceland, Korea and Luxembourg. Fifteen countries recorded drops, with those worst-affected by the Eurozone crisis – Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal – making the biggest cuts.

The largest DAC donors were the US, the UK, Germany, France and Japan. A number of countries gave significant portions of their gross national income (GNI) as ODA, with Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands contributing over the “0.7 percent of GNI” target first committed by wealthy nations in 1970 and reaffirmed several times since. The UK recently confirmed that it would spend 0.7 percent of its new budget on international development. On average, however, in 2012 DAC countries spent 0.43 of their GNI on aid.

DAC countries feeling the pinch – A number of the world’s biggest donors are suffering internal economic crises that have affected their ODA spending; Japan, Spain and Greece saw negative growth while the US saw growth of under 2 percent in 2011, and the UK’s GDP rose by less than one percent.

Non-traditional donors on the rise – Contributions from emerging donor nations are becoming increasingly important to global aid, especially as traditional donors struggle with economic crises at home. In 2011, Saudi Arabia contributed over $5 billion, up from $1.5 billion in 2007, while Turkey more than doubled its ODA in the same period, reaching $1.27 billion in 2011. According to the OECD, development assistance from non-DAC countries exceeded individual DAC country contributions. For instance, in 2010, “Saudi Arabia provided $3.48 billion in gross ODA, exceeding the gross ODA volumes of 12 of the 23 DAC countries. In the same year, China provided an estimated $2 billion in gross ODA, and Turkey $967.4 million”.

Non-traditional donors offer an alternative source of development finance for poor countries, sometimes setting up their own development initiatives – such as the India-Brazil-South Africa Trilateral – separate from the OECD.

Increased humanitarian aid – Twenty years ago, contributions for humanitarian aid made up 3.3 percent of total bilateral commitments from DAC countries, with other commitments going to other forms of assistance, such as economic or administrative aid. Today, humanitarian aid makes up 8.6 percent of these commitments. The highest aid contributions by DAC countries are to social and administrative infrastructure such as education and healthcare – an estimated 39 percent – while economic infrastructure like transport, agriculture and mining received 16.2 percent of DAC ODA.

Different donors tend to prioritize different sectors – Luxembourg spent over 18 percent of its aid on humanitarian needs and 0.1 percent on economic infrastructure, compared to South Korea, which spent 1.3 percent on humanitarian aid and 42.8 percent on administrative infrastructure. The US and European Union institutions, meanwhile, spent over 6 percent of their total assistance on food aid.

OECD statistics show that aid for bilateral projects rose by 2 percent, while aid to multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and UN agencies fell by 7.1 percent.

A geographical shift in aid – The past five years have seen a decrease in aid to sub-Saharan Africa – the world’s poorest region and traditionally the largest beneficiary of ODA – going from 47.8 percent of total DAC and multilateral aid in 2005/2006 to 41.8 percent in 2010/2011. Aid to South and Central Asia rose from 11.5 percent to 19.8 percent over the same period. The Middles East and North Africa also saw a drop of 9 percent between 2005/2006 and 2010/2011, while Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean all witnessed increases in aid.